


A letter to you

by ConlangTurtle



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: 1.5 person POV kind of?, Anyway actual tags??, Flavia!Owain, Gen, It's more like a letter adressed to Flavia so there's a bit of a POV problem, Letters, No beta we die like emmeryn, Nonbinary Eudes | Owain, So be warned, This entire thing is a mess, Trans Eudes | Owain, Well I guess it'd first-person but there is more 'you' than 'me' so to speak, anyway nonbinary Owain is briefly mentioned only so there's that, can't forget that I guess, or Flavia in this particular case, there may also be some light gore?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:48:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29459274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConlangTurtle/pseuds/ConlangTurtle
Summary: A letter from a child to a parent.
Relationships: Eudes | Owain & Flavia (Fire Emblem)
Kudos: 1





	A letter to you

You called me son on that day, the one where you died. 

You weren't wearing your armour, stripped of it for the date of it all. The only thing you wore was a simple dress, covered in flowers and suns, more Ylissan than Feroxi, a gift from your wife before she left for Ylisstol. You had smiled, too, when I entered the room. 

"Heya, son." 

You said them just like how you said kid - you didn't say it with much meaning. Really, you knew which was preferable, but you chose to say son. You probably didn't know why. To you it had never mattered what your children were; in your eyes a child is a child first and foremost. 

You bore no sword. That had always been your pride and joy outside of family. You were a warrior at heart, you spoke with the blade better than the words that came out of your mouth. You said no one but you wife and I understood your way with words. 

You gestured to the chair and I naturally sat down. You began speaking of how this was the day and your wife would be happy to see me again, how you were proud and how the carriage would be here any minute, how you'd liked to spend the last of my time here with me. 

You had given me a gift, after you had stopped, a birthday gift. You had requested a local tailor to make binders, you hadn't bribed him, he took no money as the end was close, but he made the best of the best anyway. The cloth had fit perfectly, you already knew the measurements, after all. 

The tea you had chosen, Chamomile, was cold when you had poured it out. But you knew better than to pour steaming tea out, as it would freeze. Something that would have become a crystallized forest, meant to be beautiful, but wasn't, for it was tea. 

Your gaze still wasn't as cold as the walls had been on that day. 

You had laughed when a lone butterfly had landed on the teapot. It was the kind of laugh people let out fondly: like that of when seeing a kitten play with yarn or like parents who had to stop their kids' antics.

You always found them interesting, animals, especially the kinds I had been fond of. Mainly bear, it seemed to run in your culture more than anything, though. 

Then, you spoke again, of Eldvind's beauty, and how you'd hate to see her go. You had been insistant she'd come with me, to Ylisstol. Your gaze had shifted at the mention of the Ylissean capital. 

"I really hope you enjoy it there, in the warmth." 

You never called it heat, that word belonged to Plegia and Chon'sin, it had merely been warmth in your eyes. Even when you pointed out you couldn't walk around in armour there because you weren't sure if you'd have a heat stroke or not, you had only called it warmth. Maybe it was because your wife lived there, as the current Exalt. 

Maybe you weren't describing the country, but rather my mother. 

You didn't dwell on the subject, rather opting to look back on the thirteen years we'd managed to spend together. You talked about how your wife hadn't grown taller that your chest, so she'd have snow up to her shoulders in wintertime in my first few years of existence. How you taught me to walk on the snow properly so that wouldn't be me. 

You spoke of when you taught me to sharpen blades. You insisted I was three. I was four. 

You also talked about the times in the sauna, when it was just us and your retainers, as you didn't trust the other workers at all. Your suspicions had been proved now, years later, when some would still use that dreaded Ylissean name your wife had given me. You didn't scowl when the subject drifted, merely frowned. 

You then spoke of the time - long before you even took up the title of Khan and your grandmother still organised tournaments - you tried to sew. An elder had to help you, as you'd managed to sew your fingers together without noticing. you made it a point to check if your retainers knew how to sew, after that, just so they could repair your clothes. 

You taught me everything you knew: basic cooking, some rudementary magic for emergencies, hunting- 

You got stuck up on the hunting. You told me how Eldvind had almost thrown me off the first time I got on, and how you tamed her for me, because you couldn't dare to see me hurt. You didn't mention that you thought me your only living family. Did you not remember that? 

You then spoke of one of your late retainers. He had died protecting you, he'd died to a mage Risen. You said the risen reminded you of someone, though you weren't sure who, just someone you knew. You weren't one for faces, you couldn't remember them by looking, but you said the risen was someone you knew. Someone you knew had striked down one of the two men you'd ever trust with your life. 

Then, you spoke of my uncles. You didn't have that many opinions on them, but you held them in a positive light for me. You spoke of how they protected their family, and taught that to their children. You spoke of how one of them lended his sword to you, and how the other had flirted with you in a friendly manner. You said he only did so because you allowed him. 

Though you also said he did get a few slaps to the face because he crossed a line, though not from you. 

Also, a good staff bonking, once. Though that wasn't even from someone in that family, allegedly. 

You then spoke of your old friends, how they would had loved to meet me, how they'd loved to see the wonderful person I had become. You said person, you knew that was better, didn't you? You got a guilty look in you eyes then turned to the only door in the room. 

"Was it a long way up here?" 

Not really, you knew, you were just stalling, praying that we could skip over the inevitable mention of the bloody night. You liked doing things in chronological order, everyone said, they also said I liked everything in chronological order. 

We were both stalling. 

You eventually creeped up on the next topic, testing the waters, almost. You didn't bring up the event itself, but your disasturous meeting a week before you were off. How I should have seen the damn Ylissean nobles' faces when you came in with a sword at your hip and your hair greasy. You rightfully blamed them, as they had stormed in one day demanding a sudden meeting. 

You tapped your fingers and poured yourself another cup of tea. 

"Then I had to leave. Ugh, I wish I had just gotten over with it when it came up." 

You hadn't known anything until you came back, when it was all over but I had still been very confused. You coddled me the entire week and wouldn't let me out of your sight. You had replaced the bed, since the components had been either ruined or scarred. 

You were very happy my retainer knew what to do well enough to minimize the damages. 

But you went back to coddling me two months after the incident, only letting up when a tournament to raise the spirits was held. 

You got tears in your eyes as you talked about him. Uncle Basilio had meant a lot to you, you were like a sister to him, and he a brother to you. When a risen had taken him, you didn't miss him much, but that was simply how you were- how _we_ were. You still cared, though, and you'd never get to see him. 

You blinked them away and spoke of the time we baked bread together. The kitchen had been turned into flour art and you were sure you had swallowed more oil than what was healthy. The servants chewed you out afterwards, but you smiled all the while. You told me we'd do it again sometime after we had cleaned up. 

You mentioned a flower you saw during the time I was sick after that. A beautiful purple, red, white, and yellow flower. You gave that one to me, I remember. 

Then you did something surprising, you began singing. 

It was relatively beautiful, you didn't know any methods, but you had a good singing voice. ~~You gave it to me, though I almost never used it.~~ You sang with your whole body, despite sitting down. You sang of the new dawn and warriors yet to come, power that only came from companionship and friends. You sang the anthem of your country, flawlessly. 

Then you continued singing, songs that you sung with as much life as there once was in these halls, filled to the brim though with enough room to breathe. You seemed like a poet in those moments, life seemingly growing around you as you tried to get me to sing with you. 

I did, eventually. 

When you finally stopped signing, you had laughed again, that fond laugh. You laughed as if nothing was wrong, but this was a sad day for you, was it not? You might have been an unstoppable force, a perfect warrior, an unkillable woman. But beneath all that you were human, weren't you? Something was wrong, yet you hid it. 

You rose from your seat. There were more events to talk about, yet you seemed hesitant to breach those topics. You didn't want to remember them just as much as I wanted to forget those times. Who could blame you? 

You took my shoulder and walked me down the halls, now empty, nothing but a memory of the life that had once filled them. You stared at my arm the whole time, on the mark I so proudly bore for the world to see. You didn't want to let me go, yet you knew you had to, for me. 

When you reached the garden, you hugged me as I watched my retainers help my cousnins' retainers with the last of the luggage. You didn't say anything, but you squeezed my shoulders, crying. Were you trying to remember how my shoulders felt? 

You dried your tears and ushered me out, towards the carriage. You didn't stop looking at me, seemingly taking me in as if you wouldn't make it out alive. It was obvious to me at the time you would, you were practically invincible, my whole world, even. But there was something in your eyes, some emotion. 

He held his hand out for me to grasp, and I did. Befor he could pull me up, a shadow fell over us. 

Your weight on my shoulders was heavy. 

The arrow that had been shot through your stomach looked more like a luna someone stabbed you with than an arrow, and the smell of your blood was stronger than the smokey, rotten smell of the risen that had shot you. 

You smiled, then, tears in you eyes. Were you happy? Sad? You made no sense in those moments. 

Your face then grew grim. 

"Take... them... away..." 

The weight of the world came onto my shoulders and you fell to the ground with a sickening crunch as you bones broke. 

The carriage started ratteling and the mounts screamed out. 

Everyone fell down and the retainers were screaming, as if to overpower my own scream. 

The harsh, raw, scream that only grew in volume the longer the weight lasted and the longer your body tainted the snow. 

The risen thet came too close had their own, brittle bones be crushed under the added weight, all with similar crunches. 

You tainted the snow red and the weight grew. 

But then it all stopped, and conciousness was no longer anything I knew. 


End file.
